LEGALIZE DRUGS, COLOMBIAN ARGUES

Ottawa -- Colombian legislators are arguing that the real drug problem
is with users in the United States, not with producers.

The legalization of narcotics, once a politically taboo subject, is
being put forward as a debating subject to parliamentarians and
legislators from the Organization of American States at the inaugural
Inter-Parliamentary Forum of the Americas in Ottawa today.

"Legalization could mean depriving drug traffickers of the powerful
economic ingredient that makes this illicit activity so lucrative,"
says Julio Angel Restrepo, a member of the Colombian congress.